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Full text of "The mystery of Easter Island : the story of an expedition"

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CHAPTER I

THE START

Why we went to Easter Island—The Building and Equipping of the
Yacht—The Start from Southampton—Dartmouth—Falmouthu

" ALL t'he seashore is lined with numbers of stone idols, with
their backs turned towards the sea, which caused us no little
wonder, because we saw no tool of any kind for working these
figures/'   So wrote, a century and a half ago, one of the earliest
navigators to visit the Island of Easter in the South-east
Pacific.   Ever since that day passing ships have found it in-
comprehensible that a few hundred natives should have been
able to make, move, and erect numbers of great stone monu-
ments, some of which are over thirty feet in height; they have
marvelled and passed on.   As the world's traffic has increased
Easter Island has still stood outside its routes, quiet and re-*
mote, with its story undeciphered.  What were these statues
of which the present inhabitants know nothing ?   Were they
made by their ancestors in forgotten times or by an earlier
race?   Whence came the people who reached this remote
spot ?   Did they arrive from South America, 2,000 miles to the
eastward ? Or did they sail against the prevailing wind from the
distant islands to the west?   It has even been conjectured
that Easter Island is all that remains of a sunken continent*
Fifty years ago the problem was increased by the discovery on
this mysterious land of wooden tablets bearing an unknown
script; they too have refused to yield their secret

When, therefore, we decided to see the Pacific before we
died, and asked the anthropological authorities at the British
Museum what work there remained to be done, the answer
was," Easter Island/1 It was a much larger undertaking than
had been contemplated; we had doubts of our capacity for so